Where To Watch
Mikki Jamison secretly became a car mechanic to impress on Adam-12
She shocked Kent McCord by stopping the scene and fixing his faulty brakes in seconds.
On Adam-12, Mikki Jamison played Kent McCord's wife, Jean, in three episodes, with her final appearance in "A Rare Occasion."
In this very special episode, Jean and her hubby Officer Reed introduce their new baby at a BBQ hosted at their home. To tease the episode, the studio sent out a promotional photo that all the newspapers ran, showing the happy couple holding the newborn babe.
Although Jamison only appeared a few times as Jean Reed, she took the role very seriously.
Jamison had been hungry for regular TV work ever since she filmed a rejected TV pilot in which she played Veronica in a 1964 live-action version of The Archies comic books.
After that heartbreak, she moved to Los Angeles and snagged a role on 77 Sunset Strip and that landed her a Warner Bros. term contract, and finally, the juicy part on Adam-12. Wanting to do well on this show so she'd continue getting offered more significant roles, she decided to quietly study up.
"Working with car buffs like Martin Milner and Kent McCord in a show that concerns motorized police officers practically made it mandatory for me to attend an auto mechanics class," Jamison told The El Paso Herald-Post in 1970.
After completing the auto mechanics class, Jamison felt like disassembling a carburetor was as easy as making a pie, but she never told McCord or Milner about how much time she’d spent under a hood.
Then one day on set, McCord was complaining that his sports car's brakes weren't as tight as he'd like them to be.
Jamison was in the scene with him, and instead of commiserating, she leaped into action, requesting a screwdriver and a tire jack.
A surprised McCord watched as she raised the car and in less than a minute, removed the tire and showed him how easy it was to adjust the brakes.
As any Adam-12 fan would tell you, Jamison fit right in on the set of Adam-12, but "A Rare Occasion" became her final appearance because she decided to leave Hollywood altogether that year after marrying a stockbroker who swept her off to live in Paris.
Jamison had been just as eager to seal the deal with her new husband as she had been to impress her onscreen hubby Kent McCord and seal the deal with casting directors watching her Adam-12 performances.
She told The Wichita Beacon in 1970 that when she started dating her real husband, he told her that he knew he could always find a pretty girl to take to dinner, but what he really wanted was to find a wife who could provide him with "tasty home cooking."
So while she was learning to be a car mechanic, she also learned how to grow a vegetable garden.
"After that, it was only a matter of time before I controlled his salivary glands," Jamison joked.
Six years later, Jamison made her TV comeback on Wonder Woman, then took a few parts in the Seventies before retiring as an actor again.
Instead of Paris, this time she retreated from Hollywood to her hometown in Washington, where she lived until a car accident claimed her life in 2013.
On Adam-12, she'll always be remembered as the original Mrs. Reed. After she left, Kristin Harmon took over the role.
Related
7 Comments
-1.jpg)
